Were the Creevey Brothers Muggle-Borns?

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

We have discussed before how Rowling seems to have "forgotten" in her later books that she originally intended for Colin Creevey to be a Muggle-born student. For one, it seems somewhat improbable that Colin and Dennis both turned out to be wizards if both of their parents were Muggles. For two, the fact that Professor McGonagall had to "chivvy" at least one Creevey out of the castle in chapter 31 of DH suggests that, despite the prohibition against Muggle-borns, the brothers were able to attend Hogwarts while Tom was in power... though it's possible that Colin, like Dean, was present for the final battle only because he had responded to Neville's alert on the DA coins.

However, it occurs to me that Colin's blood status was actually a bit ambiguous from the beginning.

What he told Harry in chapter 6 of COS is this:

I never knew all the odd stuff I could do was magic till I got the letter from Hogwarts. My dad’s a milkman, he couldn’t believe it either. So I’m taking loads of pictures to send home to him.

What Colin did not include in his introduction is any information about his mother. Thus, despite Colin's ignorance of magic, it's entirely possible that his mother was, in fact, a witch (or maybe a squb). If so, she would not have been the first witch to have hidden her magical abilities from her Muggle husband for as long as possible, nor do we know if she was even still in the picture by the time Colin received his invitation to Hogwarts.

Yes, Colin was petrified by the basilisk in COS, but that does not prove that he was a Muggle-born. It's possible, for instance, that he was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Furthermore, as far as we know, the only way to properly identify a Muggle-born is by investigating his or her family tree, and Diary!Tom could only know what Ginny knew or believed about the current student body.

Comments

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Oh, I love your gene theory! That the Squib gene would be dominant makes sense of the population figures that make no sense at all, otherwise. And I think it's likely the Creevey boys were indeed Halfbloods. But, as Oryx says below, they would have to be able to prove it to be allowed in the school as students. At the moment, my favorite theory is Terri_Testing's fictional one: that a lot of the Muggleborn kids were hiding out in the forbidden forest and that some of them had contacts at the school. Not canon, of course, but it makes some sense of questions like this. ;).

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

Well, we know that Colin could have come back due to the DA coin that he still had.

I suppose it's possible that Dennis just tagged along, but Minerva forced him to leave because he was underage. Colin may well have been 17 by May, so she couldn't chase him off as well.

But them being found to be halfbloods at some point off-page during Books 3-6, makes as much sense and doesn't require nearly as much back-bending.

[danajsparks.livejournal.com]

Actually, we're told in DH34 that Colin was still under-age.

Then Neville nearly walked into him. He was one half of a pair that was carrying a body in from the grounds. Harry glanced down, and felt another dull blow to his stomach: Colin Creevey, though under-age, must have sneaked back just as Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle had done. He was tiny in death.

[jodel-from-aol.livejournal.com]

Ah. Okay. He wasn't underage by much. He would have been a 6th year, and due to turn 17 by the end of August.

So, then it probably was Colin that Minerva was trying to shoo away.

[oryx_leucoryx]

The battle took place in early May (May 2nd in interview), 8 months after the cut-off date for a cohort. So assuming births are spread evenly through the year, I expect one out of three 6th years to have been underage at the time of the battle.